


the wrong place (at the wrong time)

by darlingargents



Series: Ladies Bingo 2017/2018 [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Angst, Blood and Gore, Bombs, Community: ladiesbingo, F/F, Femslash February, Hurt No Comfort, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-17 05:30:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13652406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: The bomb went off, and Rose’s world froze as Rey hit the ground.





	the wrong place (at the wrong time)

**Author's Note:**

> Another Ladies Bingo prompt:  **It was a Decoy / Feint / Distraction**. Not entirely sure how well this works for that, but oh well. I wrote this because I was in a super fucked-up headspace and I needed to write something really dark to counter it and get it out of my brain, and this was what came to mind. So, yes, this is violent and gory -- not excessively so, imo, but it's there.
> 
> The additional warning is for very minor animal harm. See the endnotes for a spoilery explanation of what happens, but if you're sensitive to that: there is no animal death, just mentions of an injury to an animal.
> 
> Also Finnpoe is very, very briefly mentioned, and Rey mentions that Finn isn't really interested in either her or Rose because he prefers men, generally speaking. This isn't necessarily my headcanon -- I ship both Finnrey and Finnrose! -- it's just what worked in this story, since it's how Rey and Rose ended up together.
> 
> **ETA: (May 4 2018)** I changed the wording of the summary and the paragraph that it's from -- it seemed really misleading, imho, because they don't both die, but I couldn't figure out another way to phrase it.

The Resistance’s diminished forces had landed on a small planet in the Outer Rim, and a few select members of the group had been sent out for supplies. One good thing about their severely limited numbers, Rey mused, was that their entire forces could be on a single planet and not attract attention.

Hopefully. There still might be spies anywhere. They’d learned that lesson the hard way, many times over.

Rey had been paired up with Rose for this mission, and they were looking for food. They would be bringing back enough food — mostly nutrition bars — to last the whole army at least a couple of weeks, once they found their supplier. They walked in companionable silence through the small village, attracting no attention from the locals. The village was small, in the middle of a forest; birdsong could be heard all around them.

There had been… something, between them, since Rey got back and Rose woke up after her injury. Finn had introduced them, and while he wasn’t romantically interested in either of them — as much as he cared about them, he was much more interested in Poe, and men in general — there had been a spark between them immediately. Their friendship had seamlessly transitioned to sneaking kisses during meals and sharing beds in the limited space to sleep each night.

It was nice. It wasn’t something Rey had ever had, and as she discovered, neither had Rose. Neither of them were really sure what to do, but it was good. It was. And maybe it would become more.

Near their destination, Rey stopped suddenly, a tingling sense in the back of her head telling her that something was… off. She looked around, but couldn’t see anything immediately.

“What is it?” Rose asked. “Is that a Force thing? Do you sense something?”

“I’m not sure,” said Rey. There was a dimly lit alley on their right, and she could see a tooka perched on top of a derelict speeder, its eyes flashing in the dark. The tooka meowed at her, and she realized it was injured. Blood shone against the fur on its back. “Do you have any bacta?”

“Um, yeah. For the tooka? I mean, not that I would mind helping it, but we’re a little low on resources at the moment—”

“Give it to me.”

Rose handed over the packet, and Rey stepped into the dark alley. The tooka hopped to the ground with a mewl of pain, and limped away from Rey, further into the alley. Rey followed, and Rose followed her. The tooka stopped next to small box lying on the ground.

Rey noticed the box, but kept her attention on the creature. She opened the bacta pack and pulled out a single bandage. Well. Hopefully they had more on the ship. The tooka seemed nervous, but didn’t move away as Rey pressed the bandage to its side. It let out a contented sigh, and stalked away into the darkness of the alley, disappearing. And something like nerves was beginning to rise in Rey’s stomach.

Because she had thought that the feeling in the Force was… the tooka, and its injuries. But she still felt it, stronger than ever.

Slowly, Rey’s eyes tracked to the box, casually lying on the ground. It was no bigger than her hand. She reached to pick it up.

“Don’t,” said Rose. Rey glanced at her; her eyes were wide and scared.

“Why?” Rey asked.

“You don’t know what it is. And I have a bad feeling about this.”

“It’s probably nothing.” And Rey was used to dealing with potentially-dangerous unknown object. When she’d been scavenging to survive, she hadn’t had much choice in the matter. She picked it up and examined in from all angles, flipping it over, as she got to her feet. Rose backed away a bit, seemingly on instinct. On the back were words, clear and strong; this hadn’t been on the streets for long. Rey squinted at the Aurebesh characters. She could read them… sort of. Her skills were a little rusty. She hadn’t needed them on Jakku.

_Rebel…_

Maybe it was from the old days of the rebellion?

_…Scum._

Maybe not.

The actual words didn’t register until a moment later, when she heard the faint ticking.

“Kriff,” she said, and the box exploded.

* * *

The bomb went off, and Rose’s world stopped as Rey hit the ground.

Her ears were ringing as she ran over and knelt next to Rey. The other girl was bleeding from a gaping hole in her throat. It was burnt and charred and oozing blood, and Rose had never seen anything so horrible in her entire life. She maneuvered Rey’s head into her lap, stroking back her hair. Blood ran out the corner of Rey’s mouth, and her eyes rolled in their sockets as she trembled in pain.

“Rose?” she whispered, her throat wound pulling as she spoke, and Rose had to close her eyes for a moment to as the urge to be sick overwhelmed her. When her nausea felt more under control, she opened her eyes and smoothed Rey’s hair some more.

“I’m here.”

“I don’t see you.”

She wouldn’t. Her eyes were blasted out, bloody and raw-looking. “I’m here, I promise.”

“Stay with me until the end?”

And the end was coming. Rose could tell. Even with the bacta she’d wasted on the tooka, her odds wouldn’t have been great; in the middle of a poor Outer Rim planet, with nothing but each other, there was nothing either of them could do. Rose nodded, and then realized Rey couldn’t see it. “I’ll stay. Don’t worry.”

The birds were singing again. The bomb had scared them off for a minute or so, but now they were back, and they sang a sweet song as the wind ruffled Rose’s hair and Rey died in her arms. It was slow, and instant; she was dying, and then she was dead. Present and then past tense.

Rose’s tears fell on Rey’s face, dripped in her bloody, destroyed eyes, and Rey didn’t feel it. And she didn’t feel her body growing cooler in Rose’s arms. And she didn’t feel it when Finn and Poe found them and clutched her hands like if they squeezed hard enough she would wake up.

Rey felt nothing, anymore, because she was gone. And Rose knew, as she watched Finn and Poe hoist her body to bring back to the ship — for burial, or burning, or _something_ — that something in Rose had gone with her.

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilery content warning:
> 
> A tooka (Space Cat) is seen to be injured, and gets a bandage put on it. The actual injury is off-page. There is a bombing, but the cat is far enough away to be totally fine. There are hints (maybe? idk how well I actually hinted at it) that the cat was injured and left out as bait, but that's in subtext more than anything else.


End file.
